The processing of documents using a high speed document transport may involve the use of multiple reading devices for capturing machine readable data as well as images from documents during processing. Document transport systems have the capability of reading machine readable data encoded on a document being processed, recording this data, and sorting the document in a predetermined manner according to the data. The machine readable data may be digitized and recognized by recognition devices and stored in various media.
Document transports may also include image capture cameras for presenting a picture of the document or a portion of the document being processed for interactive use by an operator. The captured image of the document may also be stored along with machine readable data appearing on the document. Since the document being processed passes along the transport, and since the reading devices are spaced apart along the transport, processing errors may occur due to document handling problems. These problems may result in an image of the document not being properly stored with the captured machine readable data in a single record or storage medium. Close feeds of documents along the transport as well as jams and missing documents from a continuous document processing stream can result in incorrect storage of data.
A need has thus arisen for a method for processing documents to assure that a remote receiving device such as a storage facility which receives records from two or more data capture devices merges the captured information in a single record associated with the document from which the information was captured.